It's almost 2 weeks since my husband & I have returned from Morocco, & I'm still processing the memories from this amazingly enchanting country. I should start by saying that I've been working with children & adults in an art museum for over 20 years. And because it's not been easy to squeeze my immense collage of visual images of Morocco into any kind of cohesive categories, I will go back to the Elements of ART to try to explain my concept of Morocco.

COLOR. LINE. SHAPE. SPACE. & TEXTURE...I've jotted down my stream of conscience thoughts from a quick review of my I-pad picture collecction: 900+pictures I couldn't stop myself from taking. Everywhere I looked, I saw a picture. My head is still full of them.

COLOR: If you take the time to go thorough the 26 picture albums, I think you will understand the importance of color. It is everywhere! Everything in Morocco is in technicolor: the gardens, the flowers, the Zellij (Moroccan hand-made mosaic tiles), the souks, the babouches (leather slippers), the olives, the tannery dyes, the doors, the spices, the rugs, the ingredients for a tagine, the weaving shops, the kaftans, Majorelle blue in a Marrakesh garden....

LINE: The Moroccan oddly-shaped map outline, fluid & lovely Arabic writing, the arch shaped doorways, the curving dook knockers, the everchanging landscape outlined by the blue sky, mountains & valleys from our car windows, Medina walls snaking around a city, straight tall palm trees & even straighter Minaret towers, the 5-pointed Muslim star, a weaver's shuttle in a souk, the beautiful roof of a Marrakesh medina, the dotted line of mint tea bubbles being poured from high above, & the never-ending lybyrinth of medinas in Casablanca, Rabat, Fez & Marrakesh, the straight & curving repeating lines of the 12 hour clock in Fez.

SHAPE: Zellij mosaics of every shape & size, the ever-present shape of a tea pot simmering on a make-shift stove, the shape of lily pads in many gardens, the star shape bordering multiple fountains filled with rose petals, mounded clay bread ovens, multi-spiked cacti, a Riad's interior rectangular courtyard, the conical shapes to display multi-colored Moroccan spices, the juxtapostion of straight columns meeting their cornices then moving up through the arches to "crown" an imperial grave, an ancient olive tree's organic shape, the interior roofs of Bahia Palace & their skylights, the Marrakesh Tannery's many round vats of muti-colored dyes, a plate of Moroccan round breads, the white mounded graves in the Jewish Mella ...

SPACE: the layering of a beautiful garden, a desert layered pastilia before devouring it, La Maison Bleue's interior courtyard reaching to the sky, the Majorelle Garden's telescoping walks, the Perfume Garden Cactus garden's city-like organized feel, the air space of a stork net on a tower, the shrinking space of the tiniest street in the Fez medina, the vast expanding tiled floor of a Harem Courtyard, a first look through the curtains to the atrium room in Rick's Amerian Café, the awe-inspiring soaring height of the Mosque in Casablanca, resting on top of the Atlantic Ocean.

TEXTURE: the rough & smooth of the zellij tiles found everywhere you look, the smooth & puffing calming breeze from the Atlantic Ocean, the embossed writing on an 18th c Portuguese cannon, the seedy texture of mint tea, the crunchy taste & feel of brochettes from a country café, the weathered stones of Caracalla's Arch in Roman Volubilis, the contrast of soft golden wheat vs green hard patches of onions along a highway, gritty dry clay ready to be mixed to mold into smooth ceramics, a soft mushy string of agave cactus woven into a smooth silky scarf, a plump smooth eggplant skin shrinking into a wrinkled melted skin on a cooktop during a cooking class, the smooth silky layer of amalou (a peanut-buttery type spread of argan nuts) on a crunchy piece of fresh Moroccan bread, & the gritty muddy red bumpy texture of a Berber house's clay walls.

But the Elements of Art don't do justice to the Moroccan people, or their incredibly warm & welcoming persona. At first, you don't think they are aware of you even being there. Or maybe you are too blown away by the color & beauty of all that's around you to notice anyone walking by. But when you glance at a person & connect with them, even on a busy street, & you smile, their faces open up in a warm happy smile. That connection is an incredible feeling, & it happened to us on a number of occasions, especially in the Medinas.

We are so happy we made this trip. It was an easy flight from JFK airport to Casablanca, & back. Many people speak English, especially tour guides & shop owners. Our excellent guide, Rachid, speaks 5 languages, & we benefitted from his organized explanations of Moroccan history & the Muslum faith for which we have a new respect. Ridwan, our driver, spoke Arabic & French, so my French came in handy. We enjoyed hearing his version of the world (a bit different than Rachid's). He was always where he was supposed to be, in spite of a troubling battery problem with the touring van he'd rented. The riads where we stayed were lovely, & well-staffed, & with the exception of one, were quite comfortable & spactious.

And finally, an explanation of the photo attached to this blog: We were in Fez, & had booked this riad restaurant in the Medina ourselves. The Fez Medina is known for its 9,000 allies/streets, & we knew we'd get totally lost getting there without help. La Maison Bleue's concierge called the restaurant to request an "escort" to & from our Riad. It took him 15 minutes to arrive: a tall skinny young man in a red velvet suit lined with brocade, & a Fez hat. En route through the laybrinth, I tried to engage him in a conversation in French. He was super quiet, & answered each question politely with a short 1-2 words., & no real expression.

We arrived after our energetic 15 minute march through a myriad of skinny dark streets, & walked into a beautiful small Riad, with about 8 tables in it. We sat down at our table, surrounded by majestic walls covered wtih floor to ceiling Zellij, & patrons from different countries. The waiter (pictured on this blog post) was quite talkative, & really funny, & we agreed he was super with pouring the mint tea, as pictured. (At his request, I happily posted a 5 star review of his restaurant). But it was our walk home that made this a really memorable evening.

Our silent (Roy Kent-like) escort appeared as we had paid & were ready to leave. As we were walking back, he was silent until all of a sudden, he asked me (in French), "Madame, why are there so many guns in America?" I was absolutely blown away by this question, especially because he'd been so quiet on our earlier walk before dinner. I realized that I couldn't really answer his question. But for him to actually ASK it--that meant he was really perplexed! As was I! I finally responded: "We don't really understand why we have so many guns, but we know we need to do SOMETHING about it." We carried on with our walk in the dark of the laybrinth of the Medina, among the many homeless cats, that are treated with respect.

Les & I have talked about this a LOT. It's a very good question. The whole world must be asking the same question. In such a peaceful, happy country like Morocco, it hit us like a ton of bricks. The whole world is watching us & asking the same question. It's obvious that we need to deal with this question, & very soon.